1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
In many emergency situations in order to save lives or give anesthetics for surgery in operation rooms, physicians have to use intubation procedures to establish an artificial airway. During these intubation procedures laryngoscopes are used by physicians as an instrument to keep the tongue out of way in order to visualize the epiglottis, so that an endotracheal tube can be inserted into the trachea.
The problem is that all the laryngoscope blades on the market now are narrow and can hold only approximately half of the tongue, so that it is very hard to make the tongue stay on the laryngoscope blade with any degree of stability. The epiglottis is very difficult to visualize and the endotracheal tube is very hard to be insert into the trachea.
If the patient has a cardiac or respiratory arrest, the critical period is four minutes, and quite often the tube can not be placed into the trachea within that critical time period. Consequently, the patient will have needlessly suffered from irreversible brain damage.
My new invention can overcome the above mentioned drawback of intubation. The sheath of this invention contains an aperture through which the common standard laryngoscope blade can be inserted. The sheath contains three means for keeping the tongue stable, the shape is curved, wide, and rigid, so that it can hold the whole tongue stably without slippage.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
Many prior art devices have been used for attachment to a laryngoscope for intubation purposes. The most pertinent prior art is John A Jephcott who discloses a disposable cover (U.S. Pat. No. 3,426,749. (Issued Feb. 11, 1969.)